Aurelia Butler

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    Luther S. Allison, a Jazz Pianist With Big Hands and Bigger Traditions

    The musician, 28, has won a Grammy for his work with Samara Joy and earned the respect of the elders who mentored him. His debut album is due Friday.On a beautiful day in Harlem a few months before the release of his debut album, Luther S. Allison stood chatting a few yards away from Duke Ellington’s white baby grand. Allison, a wiry 6’4” with huge hands and a contagious enthusiasm, was surrounded by history at the National Jazz Museum — Eddie Lockjaw Davis’s tenor saxophone, the famous Great Day in Harlem photo of 57 musicians taken on a stoop on 126th Street. It was a fitting scene for the pianist, a 28-year-old up-and-comer who’s drawn comparisons to Mulgrew Miller and learned to use the past as fuel for his own future.Over the last whirlwind year, Allison won his first Grammy (for his work with the jazz vocalist Samara Joy), acted in and played music for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s movie “The Bride,” toured nationally with the singer Ekep Nkwelle, performed at the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival with the bassist Endea Owens and landed a fellowship at the Jazz Museum’s Jazz Is: Now! program, which involves playing and curating a series of events. It’s all happened so quickly, he hasn’t even had time to hire a manager.On Friday, Allison will release his first LP, “I Owe It All to You,” on Posi-Tone, and then he’ll soon hit the road again. Jazz at Lincoln Center has chosen him as a featured artist for a 40-city bandleading tour across the country, arranging, playing and directing the music of New Orleans; he’ll also tour Mexico with his own band in October.“I’ve had unique opportunities to play with my elders,” Allison said in his Southern lilt. “That gave me a lot more visibility than if I was only playing with people my age range.” While an undergraduate student at the University of Tennessee, his mentor was Donald Brown, the Jazz Messengers pianist who schooled him on Memphis greats like Miller, Harold Mabern and James Williams.“I Owe It All to You,” Allison’s debut, includes four original compositions.Amir Hamja for The New York Times“Donald would tell stories about them,” Allison said, smiling at the memory. “It felt like we could have been just in his living room. He was just playing us music and expressing himself freely and it was so soulful.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Judge in Young Thug Trial Is Ordered Off the Case

    Judge Ural Glanville, who had overseen the case for more than two years, must step aside for meeting with prosecutors and a key witness without the defense.The unpredictable, much-delayed criminal trial of Young Thug, the Atlanta rap star, has been thrown for another loop: The judge overseeing the case for two years has been ordered to step aside.Following weeks of upheaval in the courtroom over an uncooperative witness, a judge in Fulton County, Ga., ruled on Monday that Judge Ural Glanville, who has already presided over 10 months of jury selection and eight months of arguments, must recuse himself in order to preserve “the public’s confidence in the judicial system.”The trial has been paused for two weeks and will resume once a new judge is assigned to the case.The move to have Judge Glanville removed stemmed from motions by lawyers for Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, and another of the rapper’s five co-defendants in the sprawling gang conspiracy case after the judge met secretly with prosecutors and a key witness who refused to testify last month. The defense lawyers said they should have been present for, or at least informed of, the meeting, calling it “improper and coercive.”The ruling by one of Judge Glanville’s judicial colleagues disagreed. “While the meeting could have — and perhaps should have — taken place in open court, nothing about the fact of the meeting or the substance discussed was inherently improper,” Judge Rachel Krause wrote in her decision.But the fact that Judge Glanville defended his actions regarding the meeting in court and ruled on related motions instead of immediately referring those decisions to another judge meant that he should step aside to assure fairness, Judge Krause wrote.“This court has no doubt that Judge Glanville can and would continue presiding fairly over this matter if the recusal motions were denied,” the decision said, “but the ‘necessity of preserving the public’s confidence in the judicial system’ weighs in favor of excusing Judge Glanville from further handling of this case.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman Talk ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ and Their Careers

    The two friends have learned a lot about being the stewards of major pop-culture characters, an education that led them to “Deadpool & Wolverine.”If there’s a magic formula for Hollywood success, “Deadpool & Wolverine” would appear to have refined it to a simple calculation: Just add Hugh Jackman’s “X-Men” superhero to the hit comic franchise anchored by Ryan Reynolds and reap the sure-to-be-lucrative dividends.So why did a film that’s projected to be the summer’s biggest live-action blockbuster prove so difficult to get off the ground?Though Reynolds had pitched a team-up to his close friend for years, Jackman initially resisted, preferring to let the well-reviewed “Logan” (2017) stand as his swan song with the gruff mutant Wolverine. And while the merger of Disney and Fox allowed Reynolds to set the third “Deadpool” movie starring his R-rated mercenary in the previously off-limits Marvel Cinematic Universe, he struggled to come up with a story that could capitalize on that opportunity. “It was just hard to find the thing that felt right,” Reynolds said.In August 2022, just as Reynolds and the director, Shawn Levy, debated putting their sequel on ice, Jackman placed a surprise call and told them he was willing to give his signature role one more go. “There’s parts of Wolverine that I scratched around and wanted to explore, but I wasn’t able to,” Jackman said. “In this film, there’s sides of him that I’ve always wanted to get out.”On a video call in late June, both men had plenty to say about the long arc of portraying and eventually becoming the steward of major pop-cultural characters. Reynolds waged an uphill battle to make the first “Deadpool” film (2016), which was greenlit only after leaked test footage became an internet sensation. Off its modest $58 million budget, the movie grossed $782.8 million worldwide and gave Reynolds his first real franchise.“I was an actor who was semi-well-known,” said Reynolds, who added jokingly, “I don’t know how you would phrase that without sounding like a dink. But I was 37 when ‘Deadpool’ had its pop-culture phenomenon moment, and I’m really grateful I was because I knew exactly how to enjoy it.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Taylor Swift Breaks Her Own Record With a 12th Week at No. 1

    Facing a tight battle with Zach Bryan, the pop superstar benefited from the release of three new versions of “The Tortured Poets Department” and shipments of CDs.This week Taylor Swift sets a personal chart record with her album “The Tortured Poets Department” after fending off the latest challenger: the singer-songwriter Zach Bryan.With 12 weeks at No. 1, “Tortured Poets” is now the longest-running chart-topper of Swift’s career, exceeding the 11-week totals she had for “Fearless” (2008) and “1989” (2014). It is the first album to rack up a dozen consecutive times at the top since Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time,” which did so last year, and Swift joins rare company in the 68-year history of the Billboard 200 chart.In the elite group of albums that not only had long consecutive runs at No. 1, but did so from the very first week they came out, “Tortured Poets” now surpasses Whitney Houston’s 1987 LP “Whitney” — featuring enduring hits like “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and “So Emotional” — which spent its first 11 weeks at No. 1, and is just shy of Stevie Wonder’s 13 for “Songs in the Key of Life” in 1976 and 1977.In its most recent week out, “Tortured Poets” had the equivalent of 163,000 sales in the United States, including 95 million streams and 90,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to the tracking service Luminate. Since its release in April, the full 31-track album has logged three billion streams and had the equivalent of just under five million sales in the United States.“The Great American Bar Scene,” the new album by Bryan, whose style has been described as Americana, folk, rock and country, was Swift’s latest competitor for the top spot. And the race seemed close, with both artists unleashing some chart-goosing weapons in the closing hours of the tracking period last week. Bryan offered his album at a discounted price, while Swift released another three variants of “Tortured Poets” as digital downloads.But Swift triumphed, while “The Great American Bar Scene” lands at No. 2 with the equivalent of 137,000 sales.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Should Slim Shady Be Canceled? Eminem’s Young Fans Say No.

    The rapper unleashes more provocative lyrics on his 12th album, and new generations are defending him — rather than rushing to criticize him — online.Twenty-two years separated “Without Me,” Eminem’s cocky, impish and defiantly tasteless 2002 smash, from “Houdini,” the lead single from the rapper’s latest studio album, “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce).” But the new track, with its sneering tone and catalog of quips that make punchlines out of both Megan Thee Stallion’s 2020 shooting and contemporary identity politics, transmits a resounding message: In the world of Eminem, nothing much has changed.Since the #MeToo movement exploded in 2017, reckonings around sexual harassment, toxic workplaces, body positivity and gender identity have changed cultural expectations for language and behavior. Young people, surprised at what the generations that preceded them endured and accepted, have largely led the charge, helping “cancel” offending figures in campaigns that ignite on social media.Yet Eminem — an artist who has made a career of thumbing his nose at social mores, rapping lyrics that can be seen as glorifying violence against women, mocking the infirm and normalizing homophobic slurs — has persisted. All nine of his albums released this century so far, including three since 2017, have debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. “Houdini,” which came out in June, opened at No. 2 on the Hot 100 singles chart, his best solo showing since 2010.Eminem accepting a Grammy in 2003. His 12th album arrived on Friday.Vincent Laforet/The New York Times“The Death of Slim Shady,” Eminem’s 12th album, arrived on Friday, and what’s striking is how wide his support base remains — and specifically how much loyalty he has engendered among younger listeners who might be expected to find his wordplay offensive, if not abhorrent.For several years, a handful of online voices, amplified by the media, have helped stoke the notion that members of Gen Z would like to see Eminem retroactively canceled. (Eminem plays with the idea himself on the new album’s “Antichrist.”) Upon the release of “Houdini,” one TikTok user called out a lyric about a Siamese “transgender cat” that “identifies as Black” that seemed designed for maximum antagonism. In a widely viewed video, the poster scoffed at listeners who still engage with Eminem, 51, a figure he referred to as a “grandpa.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Are Games Like the Euro 2024 Final the Riskiest Gig in Music?

    Performing before a major match like the Euro 2024 final offers priceless visibility, and the nonzero chance that you’ll be booed.Even to some of the most glittering names in music, the pitch is compelling.There is a gig. It is a very short gig: a tight six minutes or so. It is also unpaid. In exchange, though, the offer promises exposure that borders on priceless: a live crowd numbering somewhere around 70,000, and a captive television audience in the hundreds of millions.The appeal of serving as the pregame entertainment at one of European soccer’s twin showpieces — the finals of the Champions League and the European Championship — is so obvious, and the benefits of that brief performance so extravagant, that the likes of Camila Cabello, Alicia Keys and the Black Eyed Peas (albeit without Fergie) have signed up to do it.There is, however, a catch. For most, what is likely to be one of the most high-profile gigs of their career might also be the riskiest booking in music, one that comes with a nonzero chance of being loudly, unapologetically, unremittingly booed.Regret is not a guarantee, of course. There are acts that look back on their brush with soccer fondly, artists who serve as beacons of hope for the (somewhat unwieldy) trio that is scheduled to play just before the final of Euro 2024 on Sunday in Berlin. That lineup — the Italian dance act Meduza, the German singer Leony and the American rock band OneRepublic — have presumably chosen to focus on the more positive precedents.Dua Lipa was such a hit at the 2018 Champions League final that she has subsequently suggested she now considers herself an honorary Liverpool fan. Oceana, a German singer who performed at the final of the 2012 European Championship, remembers it as one of the highlights of her career. “The whole stadium was singing,” she said in an interview last week.Dua Lipa’s performance at the 2018 Champions League final forged a lasting connection with Liverpool and its fans. Kai Pfaffenbach/ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    At the Salzburg Festival, Revivals Take Center Stage

    The festival’s chief loves inviting productions back, giving attendees another shot at seeing a beloved show, and allowing directors a chance to nail it on the second try.Lydia Steier’s directorial debut at the Salzburg Festival did not quite go as planned. Her 2018 production of “Die Zauberflöte” was savaged by many critics.“Not magical at all,” hissed the Austrian newspaper Kurier, in the headline of its review. Steier, a native of Hartford, Conn., feared she would never work in Mozart’s hometown again.“I’ve never been so stung as by the first reactions to the 2018 ‘Magic Flute,’” the 45-year-old director said in a recent phone interview from her home in Dresden, Germany. “I felt like the concept was fantastic and we didn’t nail it,” she said, adding that the production was bedeviled by many challenges, from problematic casting to the choice of venue.Steier was not alone in thinking that her production had not reached its full potential. Several months after the festival, she heard from Markus Hinterhäuser, the artistic director. He wondered, would she be interested in giving the opera another spin for the summer 2020 festival?A rehearsal for Steier’s 2018 production of “Die Zauberflöte.” “I felt like the concept was fantastic and we didn’t nail it,” she said.Andreas Schaad/EPA, via ShutterstockSteier was stunned. “He gave us this insane, like, once in a lifetime shot to rejigger the ‘Zauberflöte,’” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    At Salzburg Festival, a Polarizing Composer Brings Artists Together

    A concert series at the Salzburg Festival, along with other events, will celebrate Arnold Schönberg’s 150th birthday and bring his music to new audiences.The composer Arnold Schönberg revolutionized the course of Western classical music. By dismantling the tonal system of major and minor keys as he self-consciously placed himself in the German tradition, he is also one of the 20th century’s most polarizing figures.The 150th anniversary of his birth is being celebrated this year with exhibits, concerts and workshops. The official birthday concert is scheduled for Sept. 13 at the Musikverein in Vienna, with the monumental “Gurre-Lieder” (“Songs of Gurre”) performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and conducted by its music director, Petr Popelka. Also in September, the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York will unveil an exhibit to commemorate the anniversary.And from July 27 to Aug. 24, the Salzburg Festival will present the concert series “Time With Schönberg,” juxtaposing the composer with everyone from his contemporary Maurice Ravel to his disciple Alban Berg.Schönberg’s theories emerged from a forward-looking intellectual climate in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century that included Sigmund Freud and painters such as Oskar Kokoschka and Gustav Klimt. The composer would write some of his most important works in Berlin, however, which he also established as a home base starting in 1912. After Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933, Schönberg emigrated to Los Angeles, where he spent the last two decades of his life.In Salzburg, the soprano Anna Prohaska, 42, will sing in the expressionist String Quartet No. 2, a work that she has been performing since 2007 and considers a “cornerstone of her career.” Georg Nigl, 52, a bass-baritone, will take on the song cycle “The Book of the Hanging Gardens,” a score that has been sitting on his shelf for three decades, and will return to the satirical, late-period work “Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte.” The pianist Tamara Stefanovich, 51, will (together with Nenad Lecic) perform the Second Chamber Symphony in a version for two pianos written by the composer after he left Germany.The following conversations have been edited and condensed. Prohaska and Stefanovich were interviewed by phone from Aix-en-Provence, France, and Berlin; Nigl was interviewed in person in Vienna.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More